


What Was Once And Always Will Be

by Anonymous



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angry Dean Winchester, Cas to the rescue, Dean Winchester Has Trust Issues, Emotionally Hurt Dean Winchester, Gen, Hurt Sam Winchester, Sam Winchester Has Powers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-15
Updated: 2019-06-15
Packaged: 2020-05-12 12:31:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19229200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Sam’s powers come back by themselves, but he doesn’t tell Dean because he knows what Dean will think...That he’s been drinking demon blood again.He hasn’t, but keeping this secret from his big brother doesn’t do him any favours.





	What Was Once And Always Will Be

Sam dumped his duffel on the library table, and slumped down into a chair. Dean dragged himself in behind him, letting his bag drop to the floor, and leaned over the table, hands braced on the surface, as if too exhausted to even move another inch.

“Fucking ghouls,” he groaned, and Sam could sympathise.

But they were alive, and the residents of that town were alive, and that was probably as good as it got.

Their bruises, their abrasions, the chipped bone he knew Dean suspected he had but wasn’t actually going to admit to, all of those would heal.

They’d made it home, in nearly one piece, and Sam was as always grateful.

He was going to be even more grateful after a shower and some food, and got stiffly to his feet.

“I’m gonna wash up and then get someting to eat,” he said. 

Dean nodded, and then straightened up, flexing his back until even Sam heard the crack and winced.

He rested his hand on Dean’s shoulder. “Maybe you should take a shower as well,” he suggested. “It’d help.”

Dean shrugged. “Nah, I’m good, Sammy.”

And then Sam felt the surge of adrenaline racing through his brother, felt the sudden anger and regret and fear but it came too late to do anything before Dean’s fist slammed up into his jaw and sent Sam sprawling to the floor.

++

He woke up in the dungeon, bound to a chair, Dean sitting opposite him.

Glaring.

“Dean, what the fuck,” he panted. His jaw felt broken, though it clearly wasn’t, but his brother hadn’t held back.

And it _was_ still his brother. Sam knew that without having to utter _Christo_ or reach for holy water or a silver knife.

“Yeah, you tell me Sammy. You think I haven’t been watching? You think I haven’t noticed. I’m not a fucking dumbass. We’ve had too many close calls lately and too many miracle escapes. If we had Cas on those hunts, I’d have thought, okay, maybe? But we didn’t.

“So you want to tell me when you started slugging down demon blood again?”

Fuck. Sam tugged at the restraints binding him to the chair, but they held, and Dean tensed up opposite him.

“You are a dumbass,” Sam snapped. “I haven’t touched any, not since…”. Not since he’d tried to take Lucifer into his body and hold him prisoner there long enough to jump in the pit. 

He could never do that again, because Sam was sure of one thing and that was if he did, it was a collar and shackles he’d never have the strength to break free from third time around.

“So you’re just mind reading on your own now. Moving furniture on your own now. Throwing ghouls across the room on you-“

“Okay! Okay, I get it, I know how it looks.”

And he was then realising that _not_ telling Dean his powers had returned, spontaneously, by themselves, to avoid Dean reaching this conclusion and tying him up in the dungeon had just brought it about anyway.

“But that’s not how it is.”

He looked down at the ropes binding his hands and ankles. He could work them loose, using his gifts, but if he did that…

He looked at Dean, saw Dean looking back with a hurt, angry expression. No. He’d have to stay where he was if he had any hope of proving to Dean he wasn’t supping from the poisoned chalice again.

But it was as if Dean was the mind reader, then.

He came over, and Sam didn’t have time to react before a damp cloth was shoved over his mouth and nose, and he screamed through it, but it didn’t matter.

Dean held it there until shadows tinged Sam’s vision and then he was gone.

++

Sam came to in his room.

He wasn’t tied down, but he had been changed into sleep wear, and the ancitipated post-chloroform headache simply wasn’t there.

He opened his eyes, gingerly pushed himself up onto his elbows, and looked around the room.

Cas was sitting by his bedside, reading a novel, and he looked up when he realised Sam was awake.

Sam reached for him, because seeing the angel there explained everything and Sam was so very glad that Cas was home.

Cas hugged him tightly, and then Sam sat up so Cas could sit beside him.

“I’ve reassured Dean you haven’t been drinking demon blood,” he told Sam. “He’s still displeased with you.”

Sam nodded. “I should have told him. Told you. I just…. Shit, I didn’t tell him because this is what I thought would happen, and it happened anyway _because_ I didn’t tell him.”

Just another example of how their lives always seemed to be a perpetual train wreck.

“He’s just as angry with himself, Sam,” Cas said. “He hurt you, and now he knows there was no reason to.”

Sam stared at the angel in dismay. “He had a reason! He thought….I let him think…. If I’d just….”

He buried his face in his hands. This, he figured, was the definition of a no win situation, and he couldn’t think of anything he could have done differently to produce an outcome which wasn’t this one.

Cas wrapped an arm comfortingly around Sam’s shoulders. “I think the two of you need to talk. You’ve said it yourself; secrets, in this family, are usually our undoing.”

Sam smiled at hearing _our family_ and wished Dean had been in the room to hear that too.

But he stood up, and asked Cas where his brother was, and then headed off to face the music.

++

At least Dean wasn’t drunk.

Sam found him upstairs, sitting in the Impala, without even the music on.

His eyes were red lined, and there was a distinct hoarseness in his voice when he greeted his brother.

“Hey, Sam.”

Sam got in beside him. “You okay?”

Dean huffed. “I punched you out, tied you to a chair and chloroformed you. I’m pretty fucking fine, how about you?”

Sam cringed, but he hadn’t been exactly been expecting a hug and Dean suggesting they go out for a beer.

“Feeling like a dumbass,” he said. “But you have to know, this is why I didn’t say anything.”

“Right,” Dean snapped. “Put it on me.”

“No, dammit!” Sam grabbed his shoulder, forced Dean to look at him. “This is on _me_. You think I don’t know what I put you through before? How hard it must have been for you to trust me again? I don’t blame you for thinking I’d slipped, Dean. I don’t blame you at all, but I didn’t know how to tell you without you thinking I’d been lying to you, going behind your back and putting us all at risk.”

Dean shrugged. His barriers were up, and Sam knew it would be hard to get past them.

“And I was scared too, Dean. I didn’t know what it meant, why it was happening again all of a sudden.”

“Which is why you should have told me,” Dean said. “Sam, I’m your big brother. We’d have figured it out together.”

Sam gave him a look, because trust ran both ways, and he figured if Dean was going to be honest, even a direct admission that his powers were back would still have seen him tied up in the dungeon.

“Cas thinks your powers were just dormant, kind of recovering maybe? That they were always there, that maybe even without that fucker tainting you, you’d have ended up with them anyway.”

Huh. That wasn’t something Sam had ever considered, that his gifts were _his_ and not an effect of Azazel’s tampering.

“So...you’re okay with them?”

Dean slumped back against the seat. “I guess...It’s gonna take some time to accept this is _you_ , and not…. But you practice with Cas, and if anything starts to feel off….”

Sam put his hands up. “You’ll be the first to know. Dean, it’s gonna be okay, I promise.”

Dean tugged Sam into his arms. “I’m sorry, kiddo.”

Sam rolled his eyes, but hugged his brother back. “Me too, Dean. Me too.”


End file.
